Two school records set at track meet

The ideal conditions may have helped two girls set new school records in their events. Senior Aryn Eckstrom set a new school record in the 1600 meter run. Sophomore Katy Hedlund set a new school record in the high jump.

Last Friday afternoon was a near perfect day for a track meet and it showed in the efforts by the Saints tracksters. That was seconded by Saints Head Track Coach Scott Allen, “Beautiful night for a track meet. We ran some good times and had some good performances in field events.”

The ideal conditions may have helped two girls set new school records in their events. Senior Aryn Eckstrom set a new school record in the 1600 meter run. Sophomore Katy Hedlund set a new school record in the high jump.

The girls finished second in the five team field just two points out of a tie for first with Martin County West. MCW scored 150 and the Saints scored 148.

The Boys finished third. GHEC-Madelia, Truman, ML (one team) finished first with 163, Maple River was second with 131 and the Saints had 117 points.

Coach Allen said, “It was a fun meet in that seniors got to pick what they wanted to run and some distance kids ran sprints and sprinters ran distance.”

No doubt having the most fun were the new SJA school record holders. Hedlund set her record first. Over a series of jumps she tied her personal best, then she set a new personal best.

She was now the only competitor left jumping. Gene Hildebrandt was supervising the event and he asked Katy if she wanted to go for the school record. Katy said she’d go for the tie, which was 5’3” and held by Brianna Brandts.

But ‘somehow’ Coach Hildebrandt set the bar 1/4 of an inch higher than 5’3”. Katy cleared it and though she thought she tied the record, she owned it outright at 5’3 1/4”. She’s got more than two full years of jumping to raise the bar on her school record.

Aryn’s record was one that’s stood for 29 years. She was gritting her teeth coming down the stretch because she must have sensed this was her moment to put her name in the record books. She crossed the finish line at 5:21.8.

Emily Hurley continues to have a great spring finishing first in the discus and tying for first in the shot put. “Emily continues to be a top point getter in the throws,” said Coach Allen.

Devon Flohrs won the triple jump with a leap of 33’3”. Allen said, “Devon is getting back to good triple jump distances.”

Aubrey Eckstrom won the 400 meter dash. Wheeling around the final curve and down the home stretch Aubrey was in a tie with the Saints Allison Brandts who finished third. Both girls are freshman and have a lot of running ahead of them.

Page 2 of 2 - On the boys side, the Saints Johnathan Surber picked up another career win in the 3200 meter run with a time of 10:02.2.

Tyler Hanson tied in the pole vault with a leap of 11’6”.

Freshman Noah Pinke won the boys 800 meter run with a time of 2:08. “Noah ran a great 800 in a come from behind win,” his coach said.

The Saints 4x100 team of Logan Sykes, Isaac Carreon, Johnathan Surber and Zuriel Chacon finished first in that event.